Dear Malte + All:
> … The request was triggered by an automated plagiarism check using CrossCheck. The whole process left me so puzzled that I thought I‘d share my experience here, combined with a humble request for a broader debate about the issue of plagiarism in empirical research. …
I was once bitten by such an occurrence, which all-in-all I found quite jarring. In my case, I had labeled the (very lengthy) sources section as “Literature” rather than “References”, so the automatism flagged all my citations as plagiarism :).
> 4) Is it common consensus that automated plagiarism checking without editorial oversight …
absolutely not, editors must _always_ check to avoid my example above. In my case it was, even after we identified the problem, heavy uphill work. I never received an apology … never mind.
To be more helpful: I looked at many plagiarism articles at that time, and found this one
https://ori.hhs.gov
most helpful, specifically the “28 guidelines”
https://ori.hhs.gov/plagiarism-0
although they go somewhat overboard methinks. [2 years ago, there were only 26 guidelines :)]
As an associate editor myself, I know we have a typical plagiarism rate and of course methods weigh in heavily. So everything below a threshold (which is below 20%) is seen as irrelevant, higher values are usually discussed between all editors.
Best, Michael
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Prof. Michael Bach PhD, Eye Center, University of Freiburg, Killianstr. 5, 79106 Freiburg, Germany.
Michael.Bach at uni-freiburg.de <http://michaelbach.de>